The week’s best TV: American Horror Story and High Maintenance

Premieres

This is one of the best shows in years, and now its finally on TV. Created by husband-and-wife duo Katja Blichfeld and Ben Sinclair, High Maintenance is a critically acclaimed web series about a pot dealer (Sinclair) who goes around New York City dispensing his wares. Each episode features the story of one of his oddball clients, who are always looking to puff for very different reasons.

HBO gave Blichfeld and Sinclair a bigger budget and platform so that even more people could experience these hilarious, touching, insightful, surprising, and totally amazing slices of life. New viewers dont have to catch up on old episodes to enjoy the show, but theyre all available on HBO Go for those who get hooked after their first dose. See, its just like drugs. HBO, Friday 16 September at 11pm ET.

Returning shows

This year Ryan Murphy and company are being even more secretive about what the story will be for the sixth season of this anthology fright fest. Theyre not even sending out screeners to the press, which either means they want to shock everyone for the premiere or this season is stinkier than Lady Gagas meat dress after four days out of the refrigerator. Reports say that its going to be about the lost colony of Roanoke, which would be pretty interesting and would keep with the pattern of previous seasons being set in the past. Either way, well be watching, even if it is through our fingers. FX, Wednesday 14 September at 10pm ET.

Bill Hader and Fred Armisens parody of Grey Gardens was one of the most genius things on television last year. Theyre back with six more episodes, in which they do hilarious send-ups of some of the most famous documentaries of all time, including The War Room, the 1993 movie about Bill Clintons first presidential campaign. Funny and timely! Its like these two never left SNL. IFC, Wednesday 14 September at 10pm ET.

New to streaming

Following its ripping success with Catastrophe, Amazon is back with another edgy UK show about horrible people. All six 30-minute episodes aired across the pond in August, and the Guardians Stuart Heritage gave the show a glowing review. Its a squalid little story of a life gone wrong. The lead character owns a cafe that terminally haemorrhages cash. Her boyfriend keeps leaving her thanks to her habit of masturbating to Barack Obama speeches, and she fills the void with meaningless sexual encounters with objectively terrible people, he wrote. Sounds just like my kind of show. Amazon, Friday 16 September.

Its hard to improve on a classic, but this History Channel remake of the beloved miniseries does just that. TV critic Dave Schilling points out that everything from the acting, effects, production design, and even the cockfighting scenes has been dramatically improved, even though the remake didnt have quite the killer ratings as the 1977 original starring LeVar Burton. In case you missed it, now the whole thing is available for you to watch at your leisure. Look, even being able to watch it on streaming is an improvement. Hulu, Thursday 15 September.